Signs of progress in offshore wind
Offshore wind is one of the most promising and underdeveloped renewable energy generating strategies. The wind blows much more consistently offshore, which increases wind turbine capacity factors. Low capacity factors are a major drawback for land based wind projects.
Development in the U.S. has been stymied by technological difficulties and NIMBY (not in my back yard) lobbyists.
One technological problem is that current offshore wind projects must be anchored to the sea floor. Projects are thus limited by depth, which in turn limits the projects’ maximum distance from shore.
This technological problem directly affects the NIMBY problem: the closer to shore, the more visible, the more people who think wind turbines are ugly will lobby against the projects.
Floating platform technologies for offshore wind turbines solve both these problems. Imagine a wind development that floats far enough offshore that it is barely visible and takes full advantage of the more consistent offshore wind.
“Principle Power announced that it has secured an exclusive license from Marine Innovation & Technology (MI&T) for the WindFloat, a floating foundation technology that could enable the development of deep-water offshore wind installations.” This business deal is an encouraging proxy for offshore wind development.
The other major technological hurdles are transmitting power undersea and converting power from DC to AC for end uses.
As always, the economic hurdle is high capital cost. Village Green’s goal is to create and increase voluntary demand for renewable energy and thereby force utilites to use more green power. The more green power we demand, the more that must be generated by scaling up production. Economies of scale lead to lower capital costs and increasing competitivenss of renewables vs. fossil fuels. That’s today’s nutshell.
Tags: offshore wind, Village Green, wind
July 12th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
[...] Signs of progress in offshore wind at Village Green Energy. Offshore wind power advances as wind technology improves. [...]
July 12th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Once the technology has advanced far enough, it would be great to have large wind farms in the middle of the ocean where nobody would ever see it. Producing energy 24/7.